Tobacco

Imagine one of these cities: Albuquerque, New Mexico, Atlanta, Georgia, Sacramento California, or Kansas City, Missouri.

Got it?

Okay, now imagine that city with every man, woman, and child missing.

Each of those cities has about 400,000 residents, give or take 20,000. Each year tobacco kills 430,000 people in the United States alone, enough to empty out any one of those cites or any of dozens like them.

Real quick, let’s take a global view: New York City and Los Angeles -- BOTH of them, TOGETHER… or 80% of the Calcutta, India metropolitan area…or half of the entire population of Australia… In other words, about 10 million people. That’s the number projected to die worldwide in 2030 from tobacco use if current rates of smoking continue.

That’s a lot of dead bodies. AND for 2030 alone, it’s 10 million TOTALLY PREVENTABLE deaths.

True, nicotine, the drug in tobacco, is the most addictive substance known to humankind (it’s right up there with heroin.) True, quitting is tough. But NOT STARTING is easy!

Take some time and check out this site on tobacco. It's packed full of information and images that can help you make informed, healthy decisions. When you're finished surfing, you can see how much you've learned by taking our interactive quiz.. You might be surprised at how well you do.